MLK Parade Bomber Seeks Guilty Plea Withdrawal

SPOKANE, Washington — The attorney for a man with extensive ties to white supremacists asked a judge Tuesday to withdraw his client’s guilty plea in connection with a plan to detonate a bomb at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade.

The request by Kevin Harpham’s defense team came just hours before he was scheduled to be sentenced in Washington state. Harpham previously agreed to a plea deal charging him with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction, and the hate crime of placing the bomb in an effort to target minorities.

He faces 27 to 32 years in prison.

Harpham told a judge in September that he placed a pipe bomb loaded with poison-laced metal along the parade route in Spokane as an attempt to commit a hate crime.